Distracted driving summit planned

A second national summit on distracted driving will be held Sept. 21 to highlight the problem and find ways to combat it, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced Tuesday.

The meeting will be held in Washington and will gather researchers, law enforcement officials, transportation officials, safety advocates, industry representatives and victims of distracted driving crashes, the department said. The first distracted driving summit was held last fall. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made combating distracted driving a focal point.

In 2008, nearly 6,000 people died and more than 500,000 were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver, the department said. More than 20 percent of crashes that year involved distracted driving.